On a related note, I have to say how much I appreciate the blog piece on Goatcraft. This individual has diluted elements of metal and presented them apart from the method of the genre in a unique and beautiful way. Like all excellent works, the essential statement stands alone. I believe there is future here for a more expansive movement in "Dark Ambient" employing the (or informed by the) phrase/composition of metal. Appeal for this would be almost nonexistent, but it is a strong argument for the legitimacy of ideas presented at the heights of death/black metal.

For now, I think it makes sense to build a library and then let the community loose on them. Over time and listening, obviously, we'll come to some more refined conclusions. But it doesn't make sense to give up before we begin!

Right now, the dark ambient that we know to be of good quality from that list is as follows: Maeror Tri, Brian Eno, Aghast, Beherit, Ildjarn, Burzum, Neptune Towers, Tangerine Dream, Mortiis. All of these are A-grade, barring Fenriz' girlfriend's band Aghast which is B-.

I'm going to start investigating some other names which aren't associated with metal.

Dark ambient isn't a genre. Ambient is an umbrella term, and dark describes the ancient/morbid feel that metal also has. Because of this, it makes sense to view ambient as a spectrum stretching from ambient/industrial/rock/folk/world music hybrids like Dead Can Dance all the way through hard ambient like Suuri Shamaani and Biosphere.

We all know metal is just about dead, with maybe five releases of note per year (although it looks like there are more this year). The point is to find the metal spirit on other genres, and to build them up, so they re-influence metal and help its development out of this retarded indie-hipster time.

Steve Roach has some works that could fall into this category, like Midnight Moon. I'm still exploring his output, so I don't know about any other releases that could be called 'dark ambient'. Also, Lustmord wasn't mentioned in this thread. The Place Where The Black Stars Hang is a great dark ambient album.